Are Attempts at Figuring Out How to Feed People in the Future Materially Insufficient?

Touch the Soil News #1382 (Feature photo – American mother in the great depression facing want for the basics – Dorothea Lang)

Hardly a day goes by that some new company configuration of vertical agriculture, hydroponics, or aeroponics doesn’t leverage the idea that in the future we need to produce more food. Even proponents of chemical and GMO practices have jumped on this bandwagon. And, of course, they have the solution.

The truth is, that our focus on the future is misplaced. Our focus should be on the here and now. Over 820 million people did not have enough to eat yesterday and tomorrow looks even more bleak. An all of the attempts at solving food access in the future are not making a difference in the food insecurity today.

Philosophically, the world’s peoples and their leaders are unable to address balancing global population with available resources and environmental limitations. The fact is that the current situation of disposing of 820 million people through slow starvation is anything but humanitarian. And it looks as though this humanitarian crisis could expand to include more people.

The world’s leaders and the global population are faced with having to find an alternative humanitarian path other than the inhumane starvation of 820 million “at risk” people. Scientific and economic research shows that if everyone were to live at the same level of consumption as Switzerland (The U.S. is even worse), we would need 2.8 Earths. You can see where your country is here: https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/

Interestingly, even without a coordinated plan, women and men more modern nations are electing to embrace smaller families – ironically, at a time when modern nations are embracing smaller homes.

In it’s latest “State of the World” report, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is concerned that food security is not improving, but declining. You can access a summary and the full report. here: http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/